The pages of a book are numbered $1_{}^{}$ through $n_{}^{}$. When the page numbers of the book were added, one of the page numbers was mistakenly added twice, resulting in an incorrect sum of $1986_{}^{}$. What was the number of the page that was added twice?
Explanation: If all the page numbers were added just once, the sum would be \[1 + 2 + \dots + n = \frac{n(n+1)}{2}.\]But one of the page numbers was added twice, so the interval of possible values for the incorrect sum is $\left[\tfrac{n(n+1)}{2} + 1, \tfrac{n(n+1)}{2} + n\right].$ We are given that the incorrect sum is $1986,$ so we must have \[\frac{n(n+1)}{2} + 1 \le 1986 \le \frac{n(n+1)}{2} + n.\]We look for the value of $n$ which satisfies this inequality chain. We have $\tfrac{n(n+1)}{2} \approx 1986 \approx 2000,$ so $n(n+1) \approx n^2 \approx 4000,$ and $n \approx \sqrt{4000} \approx 63.$ For $n = 63,$ we have $\tfrac{n(n+1)}{2} = 2016,$ which is too large. For $n=62,$ we have $\tfrac{n(n+1)}{2} = 1953,$ which works, because \[1953 + 1 \le 1986 \le 1953 + 62.\]Then, the page number that was added twice must be \[1986 - 1953 = \boxed{33}.\]